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1 Thaler - John Frederick II and John William

Issuer Saxony (Ernestinian Line), Electorate of
Year 1566-1567
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Reference(s) MB#13, Dav GT I#9754A, Schnee#163
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Reverse description Half-length armored effigy of Johann Wilhelm facing left, rendered in similar plate armor to that of his co-ruler on the obverse, conveying dynastic unity in artistic style. Six small shields of arms are distributed at intervals within the beaded border, dividing the encircling Latin legend in the same manner as the obverse. The composition is bold and high-relief, characteristic of sixteenth-century Saxon thaler coinage.
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Reverse lettering D G IOA WILH DV SAX LAN TH ET MAR MISNI
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Additional information

John Frederick II ruled despite being stripped of the Electoral dignity — his father had lost it at Mühlberg in 1547, and the family never recovered it. By 1566, John Frederick II was himself imprisoned by Emperor Maximilian II following the Grumbach Affair, a conspiracy involving the Franconian knight Wilhelm von Grumbach that John Frederick had sheltered and supported. He would die in captivity in 1595, having spent nearly three decades under arrest.

This joint issue with his brother John William predates that imprisonment, struck during the last window of their co-regency before catastrophe closed in. Schnee 163 is among the scarcer documented varieties of the Ernestinian thaler sequence from this decade.

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